


my heart, set in reverse

by andreasorion



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Reverse Chronology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:04:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1385284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andreasorion/pseuds/andreasorion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chronologically inaccurate retelling of the romance that is the Boy Who Lived and the Boy Who Made Enough Right Choices to Negate the Wrong Ones. Or: How Draco needs a Muggle extinguisher perpetually strapped to his person, and Harry needs to listen better to unsaid words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	my heart, set in reverse

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from LJ, orginally written for hd-fan-fair's 2013 Harry/Draco Book Fair

  
  
from: HP Limited Edition |  **Title:** _my heart, set in reverse_  
 **Author:**[](http://miyuki9x.livejournal.com/profile)[ **miyuki9x**](http://miyuki9x.livejournal.com/)  
 **Prompt:** [# 44](http://hd-fan-fair.livejournal.com/52187.html?thread=2792155#t2792155)  
 **Book Title:** Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Pairing(s):** Harry/Draco  
 **Summary:** A chronologically inaccurate retelling of the romance that is the Boy Who Lived and the Boy Who Made Enough Right Choices to Negate the Wrong Ones. Or: How Draco needs a Muggle extinguisher perpetually strapped to his person, and Harry needs to listen better to unsaid words.  
 **Word Count:** 3,900+  
 **Warnings/Content Notes:** There is one recurring event that is dangerous but not traumatic to the characters involved or the readers, so you should be fine.  
---|---  
  
  
**Author’s Notes:** If you are unused to story being told not in a chronological order, I hope you figure this hot mess out after at most two read-throughs. Thanks to my beta N, who is awesome in every way.

 

 

**_my heart, set in reverse_ **

‘Oh,’ Draco tried to breathe between kisses, but he couldn’t - partly because Harry kept trying to _smother_ him by not letting their lips part for more than a second and partly because it’s Harry Potter. Draco had never been able to breathe around...

‘Potter, Merlin knows it, I’m not disapparating anywhere soon.’ Obediently, Harry moved to kissing his jaw, his neck, his collarbone. Good for him, Draco thought. Instantly, he felt a sharp bite on his left shoulder, like Harry heard him thinking.

Merlin fucking Emrys, he’d hex the idiot six ways to next year for trying to kill him. Maybe later, when Harry stopped making these toe-curling noises while caressing his ribs and trailing his tongue across his chest. They were not new to this, but Harry did this as he did everything else - idiotically eager, throwing his all into it.

Harry learnt fast. He knew most things Draco enjoyed by now, like how Draco preferred kisses that were slow and dragged out rather than frantic. But if you wanted it fast and wanted it insane, you’d better do it thoroughly, head to toes, start from finish. In return, Draco learnt how to ride Harry as if his life depended on it, sending sparks of rogue magic flying around their house. Harry’s pleased smirk with the state of their house made Draco rethink his life choices frequently. Having a mentally reckless and unstable boyfriend was not something a Slytherin did.

A Slytherin did not love, either. But here Draco was.

He loved Harry Potter.

‘Draco, I can hear you thinking,’ Harry said, paired with a lick on the spot that got Draco’s brain incoherent.

Right, not the time for life-altering revelations. Later then.

 

\---

**VIII.**

They had to find time for each other these days, despite being housemates. Harry was new and therefore constantly on duty, a floo call away from chasing after a rogue potion dealer or a disastrous magical accident in the Muggle areas. Draco had even less time, St Mungo’s was nearing their busiest time with both the European Quidditch season and the annual Harry Potter Magical Tourney going on. Draco had been complaining for weeks about both, but Harry knew he complained for Harry’s sake – he never whined this much about working until last year when Harry expressed his distaste for the tournament in his name organised by Hogwarts. So, they were having this standing agreement – for a month now – to stay at home on Sundays and just... _look_ at each other. Harry had been cooking, tea boiling and bacon sizzling in the pan when Draco padded down to the kitchen.

Harry sprawled in his chair all through breakfast, lazily eating and glancing over at odd intervals. Draco smiled behind his _Daily Prophet_ : it was strangely endearing. Firstly, he had never really got used to the way Harry settled himself, occupying so much space sitting on something as small as a wooden-backed chair: it was as if after he had grown into himself without the burden of having to kill the most evil wizard alive, his presence had to make up for all that time he tried to stay small and unnoticed. Secondly, being at the end of such a gaze was something Draco enjoyed but had loudly, firmly announced that he did not. Which led to moments like this, when Harry pretended to _not look_ as he burnt a hole through the paper, while Draco pretended not to know he was being looked at and enjoyed being admired.

The whole ordeal made Draco feel appreciated, eighteen years of age, too young and too free all over again – as if he was discovering for the first time affection outside of Mother’s touches. As if he was freed once more, a dragon out of shackles and ready to take flight.

‘Done with that?’ Harry asked. Draco just made an agreeing noise, and felt his plate being pulled away. Seconds later, water from the sink started up. Harry always liked doing dishes the Muggle way.

They’d made it so far, Draco thought, and they had a long way to go. It took so much time to trust, but they were now keeping with the silent promise they made years ago, shaking hands after Harry decided the Malfoys did not deserve Azkaban. He felt stupid, suddenly, for sitting here like they had not overcome years of history and hatred.

Harry was drying the last dish when Draco walked up to him. He kept quiet while Draco refilled his tea, and only startled a little when Draco did not return to the table but instead scooted closer and pressed against Harry’s side.

‘What do you think about taking the brooms out and racing me down to the beach?’ Draco asked, his voice nonchalant.

He could hear a breath taken in surprise. Harry knew Draco didn’t like off-the-ground activities, ever since the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry, however, liked being on a broom, being mobile on his day off. He sometimes went crazy on idle Sundays with Draco, and had been pestering him to take the Nimbuses out with him, every summer. Draco never indicated he would like to get back to flying.

Until now.

Suddenly, there’s a solid Potter pressed against his front, arms around him.

‘Don’t hate me for this.’

Draco managed to see green eyes, a worried hint on the most gorgeous face he had ever seen, before Harry’s lips touched his. He sighed into the kiss and let go. Because, bugger it all, this, this was worth all the friendships in the world, no matter how great it was. He was a Slytherin, he would find a way to keep this forever.

 

 

\---

**VII.**

It started and ended like this.

Electricity could cause fire, Draco found out the hard way. Should have bloody read those engi-whatever books, or at least _Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles_ closely.

Alas, world-shifting life-altering knowledge had to be earned in a fire for Draco to remember it. He solemnly swore to Merlin one day he would find a seer competent enough to tell him _why_.

The fire was surrounding them, but fortunately not the ceiling. They were not in dire danger if they moved soon. Speaking of which...

‘Harry, up,’ Draco said irritably, pushing against the body next his. Harry groaned. His body seemed limp when Draco rolled off him, but he seemed to be waking, so that was good, at least.

He grabbed for his wand, casting a few spells on him and Harry, those he could immediately think of that would preserve their lives: spells against smoke inhalation, spells to slow down their breath intake, spells on skins so that they did not burn unless coming into direct contact with fire. This was where a healers’ knowledge showed its handiness.

It took time for the spells to settle in, time that they didn’t have. But Draco could not do much, because _here_ was the most frightening part of being caught in a fire: no matter how much magic you know, most spells that could put out fire had to be done from outside, or within a space large enough for there to be enough air, and water in the air. And guess what? Harry and Draco could not manage either.

Draco dragged himself into a sitting position and allowed himself few seconds to think. Half of his brain considered Harry and his well-beings. Being electrocuted was similar to being stunned. No visible sight of open wounds, your body was numb and for some time after, there was a limited range of movement and dizziness. They both had hit their heads, Harry harder than him – he himself felt fine, but Harry could be concussed. They would be able to move enough to get out of the fire, if they needed to. And the other half of his brains, the one running through spells and solutions seemed to think there were no other way out but moving. They could risk the fire and injuries, or they could wait here until there wasn’t enough air or their magic couldn’t keep out the smoke anymore.

Steadily, he coaxed Harry into a standing position with arms around his shoulders, and started walking. He knew the flat by heart now, so he did not need to think to find the direction of the front door. His mind started working like every other time he was in danger.

Draco mentally cursed Harry for choosing a flat with so much wire and Muggle _crap_ that Draco did not understand. Then he started cursing himself, for being so curious all of a sudden. He knew better, knew that he let Muggle things be well enough alone unless someone explained them to him.

But he had been angry, had he? He had been angry, and foolish. Anxious, bored to Azkaban and back, waiting for Harry to come back, without knowing when he would arrive.

Because... they had been fighting. Somehow, he'd managed to get into a fight with his best friend, a fight so serious that Harry had skipped two Tuesdays in France with him and Mother now. They had been in almost silence with each other for a month, terse owl notes and short, awkward Floo calls.

Draco, deep inside, knew what this was all about. They were idiots, both of them. He could hear Ganger’s voice and Weasley’s teasing even until now, about how they were ‘painfully oblivious’ and ‘so married it’s ridiculous why they are not shagging’. Additionally, Draco was a coward and Harry too much of a pushover. Draco knew and Harry knew and they both knew, all right. But Draco got too much on the scale while Harry kept too much near his heart, so when Harry took some of his feelings out and decided to act on them, the scale tipped and Draco drew back. Harry tried to inch them out of that comfort zone they built, and Draco ran back to his seventeen-year-old self twice as long. They were _buggered_.

‘Your house is hazardous, Potter,’ he said instead the things he should have said, between the heat and the roaring that Draco should not find familiar.

And Draco was trying to fix it. Which was why he decided to break into Harry’s flat (‘You’re not breaking in, Draco, Merlin knows you are allowed in here as much as I am.’ He suddenly remembers Harry’s bright smile, and it is more blinding than this fire) and wait for him to come home. It was Friday and he was going to invite Harry out to dinner, just them, maybe talk thing out, straighten the mess that they ended up in and maybe, definitely, it would be a date...

He heard sirens, the air cool, the fire suddenly out and people putting blankets on them, putting down the fire on his shoulder, his back, Harry’s jeans...

Draco woke up in St. Mungo’s instead of a Muggle hospital. Mother was asleep sitting on a transfigured arm chair, hand holding his and the most worried she had ever looked since the war. Draco felt a slight pang of guilt.

‘Here.’

Draco saw the cup of water and the hand before Harry’s awkward smile.

They just stared at each other, and Draco might have counted the minutes, hours maybe, but he lost count somewhere when Harry’s brilliant green eyes shifted from worried to withdrawn.

He took the cup, but another immediately grabbed Harry’s cool hand and held tight.

Draco was finishing his glass of water when Harry spoke up again. ‘You burnt down my flat. I’m moving into yours.’

Draco believed Harry heard all his silent words.

_Sorry_ , and _Yes_.

 

\---

**VI.**

Slowly, the fragments of their life came together, just as their friendship. People were sceptical of it, most of all Harry’s close friends, but they dealt with it. Like the way Draco’s father dealt with the fact that most of his life he had been holding onto losing battles, from which Harry Potter saved him. And now his son was friends with him.

What turned into routines for months while Draco worked his way into being accepted by St. Mungo’s and Harry paid his time at the Auror Academy (despite not actually needing to, the arsehole), was that they had a standing tea date with Narcissa every Tuesday under the grapevines behind her new southern French home. The tea date always turned into Harry walking down the beach with Draco, feet digging into sand and laughter coated golden by the sunset, to Draco’s own cottage and having dinner there. Draco regularly turned up, invited by several people, to Harry’s weekend gatherings: friends, family (Weasley and Black and Lupin), always a mix of them. Harry helped Draco get in contact with old Slytherin friends and most of them never forgot to Slytherin-pester Harry into coming along. Sometimes they teamed up to babysit Teddy so that Andromeda and Narcissa had time to finally be sisters, decades late but better than hating each other forever.

There were more intimate things, just between the two of them. Such as Draco absent-mindedly helping Harry pick out his flat by mentioning how nice the neighbourhood was while flipping through a Muggle London guide, leading to him helping set up the anti-Muggle wards, having a spare key and a standing invitation to make use of the guest bedroom – Harry never asked about the flat’s closeness to St. Mungo’s, and Draco never answered. It was fair though: Harry did help Draco move, once to France and the second time out of his parents’ house, and had always had a key for Draco’s backdoor, anyway. Or Draco having more Muggle books than wizarding these days, because as Granger told Harry who eventually told Draco, the selection was larger and much more extensive on all fields, especially medical.

Draco held his tattered copy of the Muggle Studies book that every students who take lessons at Hogwarts should have close to his chest, and sighed. This was also a piece of Harry Potter in his life, a gift with a scrawny note of _‘Not detailed but generally correct. Learn the Muggle way, Draco, for you have chosen it. ;) –Harry’_.

Most of people who knew Potter, Draco imagined, would describe his presence as something of a power station. Most people didn’t know how it worked, but most did not need to for it to be powerful, to provide power, to be solid and constant in one’s life.

He himself experienced a bit differently. Potter crashed into his life, contradicting for years before gentling himself in a position of protection and provider and lightness. If he continued with the Muggle ‘electricity’ metaphor, then Potter would be electricity himself. Fitting, with that scar on his head.

Warmth filled him, unexpectedly.

Oh Merlin, I have feelings for the scarhead dumb enough to let me renovate his wardrobe with entirely skinny jeans.

 

\---

**V.**

Despite the one to one million possibility of Draco finding Potter pleasant (Draco was excellent in numerology and arithmancy despite not taking them, thank you very much; therefore he was sure the number he was talking about represented an extremely small chance), Potter managed to worm his way into Draco’s life. The wanker was bizarrely witty when he needed to be, gentle with his Mother and tolerable with Father. He was Draco’s only companion for a week, but for whatever reasons had _not_ embarrassed himself, got in a fight with Draco or bored Draco to death.

As a reward, Draco himself had been finding ways of making Potter’s life miserable. Not in a malicious way of course, he grew out of his last hatred for Harry Potter when the tosser returned his wand back to him, on top of getting his family not thrown into Azkaban and helping them keep the family Manor. No, he was testing Potter’s resourcefulness. If he could not keep up with what Draco threw at him, surely there was no way they could stay mutual acquaintances. There might be another easy way to make nice with other human beings, but Draco was done learning to please people and fitting in those little roles the world set out for him. He was doing this his way.

Between those thoughts and seeing Mother’s regretful eyes towards the beautiful garden she used to tend to before those trespassers trampled all over her home, he blurted out: ‘We should move back to France.’

Potter’s eyes widened in surprise. It was Tuesday’s afternoon, which meant the weekly exotic tea time where Narcissa invited Harry Potter over to try the most ridiculous tea she could find and Potter politely accepting without letting her know that he knew she was just looking for company. They mostly ended up with Narcissa asking after Potter’s life as if she was his mother and learning about Muggle things, discreetly, of course. Draco usually crashed in for his Mother’s ginger biscuits half way through, like clock-work.

‘Draco, don’t be ridiculous. We co–’

‘Harry can help,’ Draco interrupted Narcissa before she could finish expressing her distaste for the idea. He turned to Potter then, not-exactly-smirking in a way that he hoped conveyed friendly challenges.

‘Harry, how much sway does the Saviour still have with the Ministry, three months after the Battle? I’m sure you could convince them that us moving out of the British Isle is a great idea.’

Potter blinked owlishly at them for a few seconds, but eventually put on a boyish grin, his green eyes filled with amusement.

‘I’m positive I can think of a way. Anything for a friend, Draco.’

While Draco pondered the way he did not protest the word ‘friend’ Potter used to describe their relationship, Narcissa nicely declined the offer to help while Potter keep insisting, knowing she was only doing it for politeness’ sake.

Later, the warm afternoon took them inside.

Potter startled him, crowding against Draco’s chair with shaded eyes and a curt question: ‘Why France?’

Draco’s explanation – of childhood times in France; being reminded of that by a Muggle travel book Potter’d given Narcissa – made his smile widen with time, and Draco thought, having a friend is pleasant. It’s _nice_.

 

\---

**IV.**

Draco felt as if he slept for years, the first time he got to a bed in the Manor after May 2nd. He crashed somewhere in the West wing, dusty bed sheets and sun shining on his face. He woke up and had to walk himself to the dining room, vanishing broken artefacts as he consider all the unknown damages that he didn’t notice because of the perpetual darkness.

He found Mother and Potter sitting at the table, sipping tea after... must be a brunch, from what he could tell of the sunlight. Even more bizarre though, was the _Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles_ book between them, Potter patiently explaining to Narcissa about, apparently, how Muggle ‘engines’ worked.

‘Draco, care to joy us?’ Mother beckoned him over. The gentle way of her hands, the grace she still carried herself with while still badly affected by several injuries, reminded Draco of how close he had come yesterday of losing her. So he ignored the burning in his eyes (‘Malfoys don’t cry,’ Father once said) and pulled a chair to sit down next to Narcissa, as close as socially acceptable.

A tea cup and a plate of biscuits were pushed in front of him, by two different hands. He looked up at Potter, and received a tired smile.

‘Eat. You could use a bit more weight.’

Eyes squinted momentarily, Draco took in the Saviour of the wizarding world. Somehow, he was not at the Weasleys’ house, or out celebrating, or doing any number of things that were not visiting two Dark Lord sympathisers awaiting trials. Somehow, he was here, discussing a book with Narcissa as if they were friends. Knowing Potter all these years, Draco could tell that they were his new ‘project’, something, someone to protect, to be heroic and self-sacrificing for.

He could not care less though. He was tired, of the fighting, of the prejudice, of the pretense and the pretentiousness. If someone was looking out for them, his ego could just take it up the arse and deal with it. He was grateful. And taking advantage of the situation as a true Slytherin.

‘Harry.’ He tipped his cup forward, indicating as much good will as possible.

‘Draco.' Potter beamed.

A silence settled in, Narcissa considerate and sensitive enough not to break this tentative truce between two young men, who mere hours ago had still been on opposite sides of a war.

 

\---

**III.**

It started and ended like this.

Heat, heat, so much heat. Heat licking at his skin. Heat roaring in his ears, and he thought, _this is impossible._

Draco had never believed it when he heard people say that you couldn’t move in a fire. A place engulfed in fire had enough brightness to guide you through. But, as he found out, your eyes wouldn’t manage to bloody open. His eyes hurt, as much as that time Mother brought home the delicacy dish from India and he had foolishly taken a spoon without heeding the warning, crying out in pain because of the spiciness invading his head.

The memeory led to frightening thoughts of Mother being alone and Father being in Azkaban and Voldemort not winning and _Voldemort winning_ and himself, dead, dead as in _Snape-and-Dumbledore-dead_ , dead...

A hand grabbed him, suddenly. He could felt himself being pulled up, sharp pain that shot through his arm. His one single arm had to hold too much weight, and it was not strong, never strong enough for that. Another injury to add to his hellish day, he thought. He suddenly remembered _Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles_ for some stupid reasons. How they had to produce tons and tons of ‘medicine’ to achieve the effectiveness of one potion and how they had to have additional knowledge about how the body worked to fix people up, such as how many bones the arm had or how many muscles.

He would find out what the one on his shoulder was called, if he survived. Now, he just knew it hurt like a bitch.

He got pulled onto a broom, and it turned out to be Potter.

The bloody wanker had come back for him.

Draco’s world shifted and arranged itself into a new order.

 

\---

**II.**

Staring down at a disfigured Harry Potter turned out to be one of the most peaceful moments of Draco’s life.

He almost sighed in relief when he was brought face to face with the Boy Who Lived. Because he had been losing hope on Voldemort, had been since he tortured Father and invaded Mother’s loving house, since he saw the vision he once had of the life under the Dark Lord crumbled. He was scared for his family’s life, while not scared for himself – for the first time. He, as a true Slytherin, had been calculating ways for Mother to escape Voldemort’s hands intact, for the Malfoy’s name to remain after Voldemort's fall, figured he would have to trade his life in the process and began to make peace with the fact long before he knew he could experience that much pain without dying, watching people hurt and being hurt himself.

And then Potter came, as if pointing a wand towards a door that said ‘Exit’, and he thought, _yes I may live_.

 

\---

**I.**

Harry Potter was strangely disappointing. He had thought of the legendary boy as someone who was magnificent, a bright presence and an intelligence rivalled by none. But he was scrawny, he was subdued and he was _hanging with the Weasley_. Most of all, he turned down Draco.

He hated Harry Potter.

Eleven year-old Draco with all his determination and pettiness decided to make it his life goal to never forget that. Older Draco was glad he did not.

 

\---

  



End file.
